Doesn't work for me for some reason. Could be the crappy work PC I'm on, but it gets stuck in a loop "Working..." leaving me stranded in what appears to be a run down, rural waterfront logging operation.

I'm fairly certain I'm in Jersey. The Channel Island sort of Jersey, not one of the American sorts. Lots of French names, but more importantly British style road signs and the place name 'St Hellier' on one of them. In fact, I've just noticed, the sign that I've spawned next to actually has a sign for the airport on it. Easy street.

So I find myself in some random little neighborhood surrounded by apartment buildings. OK there's a traffic circle over there. Ah I see I'm someplace that drives on the left. That narrows things down a bit.

Zipping along ... now on a minor thoroughfare of some sort called "Livingstone Street". Just passed "Linmale Elementary". Continuing ...

Another traffic circle. And a sign that says "Glasgow Dumbarton A814". So I'm in Scotland not too far from Glasgow. Guess I'll follow the sign.

And I found a train station. Yeah that doesn't really do me any good as I'm stuck to the roadways, eh? This train station seems to be at the ass end of things in the wrong direction. GAH. Rattling around minor freaking alleys ... FINALLY! A four-lane road. Hey, it's the legendary A814! Maybe I can get somewhere from here.

Well poopcakes. I got distracted down a road that goes nowhere. Time to find the A814 again.

Whew! Found it. But ... which way do I go? people of dubious character couldn't put up a sign, could they?

Found a bus stop. Now if only they had the "infinite sharp zoom" button like they do on TV I could read the posted schedule. And the road is now a two-lane. So I'm gonna backtrack.

"Welcome to Glasgow" Now if I can only find a major freaking highway that might just have signs on it that point out things like, oh, I dunno, airports ...

Just passed the "Anchorage" bar and I seem to have found the back end of a seaport. Or at least I see the top of a boat so I assume it's a port of some kind. Can I just take that boat? No? OK, keep going.

Looking at google maps after the fact I see I started in Clydebank and ran right along the river almost all the way into town. And I see that if they had managed to actually post some useful signs along the way I could have taken that tunnel across that river and pretty much ended up right at the airport and saved myself about half of that journey! Sigh.

I should probably remind people that unless you want the challenge, you're supposed to pick your own country. And you can navigate around by clicking in the distance when it's a circle on the ground. That lets you jump several "scenes" at a time. Alternately, you can face a direction and use the up and down arrow keys to go toward and away from that direction. Left and right turn the camera a little faster than using the mouse.

I've tried this a few times. The first time, I figured out where the airport was but I could not stay on the highway. It kept making me curve on this off ramp to go the wrong way. The next time my browser closed. Going to try again today.

EDIT: All right, I'll do this journal style. I'm in some neighborhood where the railings of the bridges have fish decorations on them, so I'm guessing I'm somewhere coastal.

Found some sort of main road and after following it for a bit I find an airport shuttle with people. Whether it's coming from or going to the airport, I don't know, but I'm following it. There's mountains in the distance so my coastal assessment may be incorrect. I'm heading away from the mountains, as there wouldn't be an airport near those.

After a few intersections, it's obvious that this set was taken at a different time, as it is now stormy and the shuttle is gone. Oh, well, good lead while it lasted.

Aha! There's exits for I-90 running to Spokane and Seattle, so looks like I'm in Washington. Seattle sounds like a good destination to find an airport, so that's where I'm a-heading. Beautiful country, btw.

Gah. Apparently there was a nuclear strike when this was being recorded.

Well, things WERE going great, then I'm clicking ahead to jump forward and all of a sudden I'm in a tunnel on the wrong street. Bleh.

Back on track now. No sign of an airport exit.

I ended up giving up and looking it up. The airport for Seattle is halfway between it and Tacoma, way south of where I am now. I gotta agree with James in the post below, looking for an airport is not as fun as trying to just get out of the initial spawn point. Maybe we should just change the game to find clues on where you are?

Zombie Protestor wrote:I've tried this a few times. The first time, I figured out where the airport was but I could not stay on the highway. It kept making me curve on this off ramp to go the wrong way.

I had the same problem, I was in Houston and I kept being tossed onto the wrong road whenever I came to an overpass or underpass. It eventually became so frustrating that I had to give up, even though I had a clear run to the airport. Maybe I'll give it another shot tonight...

(Incidentally, the place where I started was the sort of subdivison I hate most. The best way to describe it was "a maze of twisty little passages, all alike." If I hadn't come across a map of the place I don't think I'd ever have gotten out. <_< )

Skimba wrote:Waking up blindfolded sporting a ball-gag is not how I usually spend my Thursdays.

*disappointment*

James wrote:While writing this post I've been gripped by a growing concern that it's nothing more than incredibly tedious navel-gazing. But hey, this is the Internet.

I found a sign for the airport incredibly quickly, but then I had to follow the M77 for what seemed like forever, then the A77 for a similarly tedious amount of time, and then I got to Preswick Airport.

I think the problem with searching for airports is that a lot of time they're actually out of town somewhat for practicality reasons, so a large portion of the journey is spent following long, mainly straight, mainly uninteresting roads. Perhaps it'd be a bit more fun to search for something like a police station or a florist or something.

After finding the airport, I decided to give it a go for Sweden, but I found the place it had dropped me was very much suburban rather than urban, and I decided to give up, because it probably would have taken me hours of aimlessly wandering residential streets and forest roads. After that I decided to try setting it to the whole world and seeing if I could guess the country I'd been dropped in. I've tried it a few times, and I haven't got one wrong yet, so I'm feeling quite pleased with myself. The first one was Romania, which was pretty tough, but I was clued in by the unusual diacritics on the letters in some signage, and a cart over-full with branches being pulled by an emaciated horse. Then I found a building with a bunch of Romanian flags outside, so that was a bit of a give-away. Then it put me in Antarctica, which was quite fun – I didn't know they had "street" view there. After that, it looked like it had put me back in Sweden, but the road names and other writing were all wrong. That was a pretty good clue.

Anyway, I decided to give it another spin and this time I was successful!

It dumped me into yet another nondescript subdivision, although this time with numbered roads that I could navigate by. The fact that I was on 288th Street was a bad sign, though.

Getting out to a more major road wasn't too hard; I also found out that the street numbers got lower to the north - that would be the way to go, I think! There was also some sort of big body of water to the west, might as well head in that direction for a clearer view...

After a while going north, I got to... Des Moines? This really doesn't look like Iowa, it's forested and kind of hilly.

My policy of relentlessly going northward and sticking to decent-sized roads finally paid off, when I saw that wonderful word on a sign: Airport! Time to take that road and stick to it.

There was a sign that mentions "Port of Seattle". Aside from meaning I was probably close to the airport, I now know where I really am.

Finally, after a while on the road, I came to an intersection and... huh. That fenced-off area almost looks like... and that tunnel I went under on the road I turned off on next was under a runway... Aha! Now to find the terminal.

Ummmm...

Where is it? Ugh...

OKAY FINALLY FOUND IT.

And here's a map of my route, including my wandering in the area of the airport itself:

If I'd only stayed on the first main road I came across, I'd have looked like a genius (or a cheat).

James wrote:While writing this post I've been gripped by a growing concern that it's nothing more than incredibly tedious navel-gazing. But hey, this is the Internet.

Zombie Protestor wrote:Decided to use this as a chance to do a semi-virtual tour of places I've always thought would be nice to visit and started my journey in Germany. At this view here (http://www.mapcrunch.com/p/51.056963_13 ... 65_-9.36_0) I find this. WHAT DO YOU NOT WANT ME TO SEEEEEE?

The Germans are a superstitious lot. Many of them believe that if a photograph of their house is ever posted on the internet it will steal their soul.

James wrote:I found a sign for the airport incredibly quickly, but then I had to follow the M77 for what seemed like forever, then the A77 for a similarly tedious amount of time, and then I got to Preswick Airport.

I think the problem with searching for airports is that a lot of time they're actually out of town somewhat for practicality reasons, so a large portion of the journey is spent following long, mainly straight, mainly uninteresting roads. Perhaps it'd be a bit more fun to search for something like a police station or a florist or something.

Yeah, it's kind of inconsistent with how fun it could be. The trip in Seattle I could treat as a sort of logic puzzle, as I had to work out a good portion of the way on my own, and even after finding the sign for the airport there were a few spots where the route was a little ambiguous, so I still had to think out a few intersections. I just did another one (in Germany), though, where I found out I was in Dresden pretty much right away and like a second after found a clearly-marked path to the airport. I was seriously considering taking a detour when I saw the road to Prague just to do something different, but that would have taken way too long.

James wrote:While writing this post I've been gripped by a growing concern that it's nothing more than incredibly tedious navel-gazing. But hey, this is the Internet.

Misadventures in France! I figured out fairly quickly I was near Chambery (I saw the flag of Savoy and some mountains that looked Alpish, and that's the only place there I know of), but the highway I was on ran out of images after a bit - turned out it was the right way, though, as that would have led fairly quickly to the main city airport (about 15 or so km away from my starting place as the car drives). What was funny though, was this:

This was my view starting out. Aside from the implication that I ended up where I did by getting in a car wreck (shouldn't have let Ponder drive), the fun part is that I found out there's an airport RIGHT THERE BEHIND THE AUTO PLACE. It's seriously only about 200 metres away in that very direction. Only a small place with one runway, but still.

James wrote:While writing this post I've been gripped by a growing concern that it's nothing more than incredibly tedious navel-gazing. But hey, this is the Internet.